Jimena Mendoza's look back at the Cuerpo V exhibition

On Friday 26 April, Radio Gotika, the ongoing performative project of Anna Prstková, was broadcast during Brno Art Week 2024. One of the guests of the broadcast was Mexican artist Jimena Mendoza, who briefly spoke about the exhibition Cuerpo V. We bring you a recording and transcript of this interview.

JIMENA:
The exhibition is totally conceived for this space. It won't exist without this proposal of the space, so all the decisions are precise, and it's going to be very hard to exhibit it again, or it's going to change completely. But sometimes it's a gift. I was amazed about these windows. This natural light during the morning, it's amazing, and then in the afternoon it's creating patterns in my patterns. I didn't design it, I cannot control it, and they are there just like life itself. This is amazing, this encounter that is out of your decisions.

You will see all the exhibition is very much about ceramics, so including all these other materials, like these black rolls, is breaking this material base, they are coming with something that is much more oily or industrial. This kind of ugly stuff I like, I'm searching for something that’s breaking this beauty and harmony.

ANNA:
When I was here for the opening, I had this feeling of something very familiar in the space, I didn't really experience a feeling of shocking surprise, or something that would totally sway my mood, and it was a very interesting feeling for me. Maybe I was also kind of motivated by the title, and by trying to enter the space as a body, as something that is soft and inviting for me.

JIMENA:
This perception is interesting, because other people said: “But I don't see the dress. Where is the dress?” And as I said, it was related with the costumes. I'm very interested with my pieces to inhabit the space, so that you can feel their presence in the space. And for this reason, I was designing all the furniture, that is part of the exhibition. These furnitures are an invitation to stay, not to run away and just cross by, but to be with the pieces. Maybe it is more existential thing, let's say. It sounds a little pathetic.

It’s very important to me that the exhibition is one solo piece. Sometimes it's nice, and sometimes it's very complicated, because it's impossible to exhibit the pieces alone when they’re missing the context. So the pieces are very connected. I work a lot in these space compositions. You are walking and looking, and when you come back, you have completely different view.

ANNA:
So there is a sort of a narrative to the exhibition?

JIMENA:
I tried more to keep the pure potential of all these elements, they could be here in completely different way. They are not closed, passive, like when you say “okay, this pieces are done”. I think, these pieces are not closed, they are not done, and they have the possibility to change and varieted and exist completely different. For example, like these other pieces, at the beginning I thought that they're gonna be more like settled, but then finally I feel that they should be in this state of material.

I hardly use ready-made. I think this is my mission as a sculptor, to produce something that doesn't exist, giving life to something. I should mention I'm not researcher, but I look at others a lot. I go to the library, I travel, I look, even if there's someone sitting there, I say ah, look how it looks like. I have hungry eyes. It is very interesting for me to do things, to produce them. Also my hands are super important, as well as the scale, the dimension of the pieces, even if they look big, they’re very miniature pieces. I would say that I am a sculptor, but a desk sculptor. I do many things in interior and most of my pieces are for interiors.

I have a very strong relationship with objects, but these objects are really, let's say domesticated. That’s one of the most important things that I'm searching in terms of even design, or architecture. All these pieces were done in my studio, which is maybe three meters by three meters, is small and full of things. It is a hidden place, I need privacy for work.

I'm drawing a lot. Everything happens in drawings for first time, and this has helped me a lot, I think drawing is the best. Everything is possible in drawings, you can taste and taste and then after you can visualize and choose, and this also helps me not to produce waste, because I don't keep buying material, thinking, doubting, it's more straight, but thanks to these drawings it is big imagination. When you are working with ceramics, you are always open to failures, mistakes, accidents, and sometimes it's even improving your pieces. Because sometimes you can't anticipate what the heat will do to the specific material and so many other things you cannot control, it is full of surprise, like in life.

You can listen to the original recording on our Soundcloud: